


Glasses

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 3 [19]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 16:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14024121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Skinner's glasses ...





	Glasses

By midnight, Maggie was stoically sitting on the kitchen table, hands clasped, back straight, slipping silently through the minutes while everyone bustled around her, questions happening, phone ringing, Scully beside her, not knowing what to say or how to comfort except to pat her hand and be.

Mulder stood, rubbing the back of his neck, muscles stiff from hunching beside Langley and his magical, hacking laptop at the counter. About to ask if they needed anything, he stopped suddenly, his fingers finding the small scar of a microchip that could change the world in a heartbeat.

It was a small movement, to the rest of the world a weary, worried one.

To Scully, it was one of sheer and utter gut-dropping panic and muscles tightening as she reached for her own neck, she whispered to him, terror clear across the room, Frohike whipping his head around at the despondency it carried, “we never checked him.”

Mulder wanted to vomit on the spot, “he went with me. He was out of my sights for at least an hour. Who knows what they could have done?”

“I sent him with you. I made him go with you.” Moving her hand to her mouth, “oh, God, Mulder.”

Deciding his panic needed to take a backseat for awhile, he moved to her, “hey, hey, we don’t know if that’s it. I mean, there’s no reason for them to have given him one and we don’t know that they did. He could very well just have … I don’t … maybe he’s undercover like I was and couldn’t tell anybody or …”

Cutting him off, her fingers twisting with his, “there are plenty of possibilities but if it’s this,” free hand still on her neck, finger tapping technological bump of living nightmares, “we’re approaching it all wrong.”

“Then I have no idea what to do.”

&&&&&&&&&

Inactivity made her bones itch. 3am was a time for sleep, not frustration, not pacing as her mother drank tea and silently panicked. This nonsensical waiting around a well-lit room with Skinner somewhere lost in the dark wasn’t cutting it. “Mulder.”

“You want to go look, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where to start. If this were you, I’d be breaking down doors and tossing people through walls but I have absolutely no idea with Skinner and it’s making me crazy.”

Mulder, antsy as well, growled his irritation, then, moving to Scully, stopped her mid-stride, attempted to smooth the worry wrinkle creasing her forehead, settling deep between her eyebrows, “should I see if I can find him?”

Wishing she didn’t have to involve that cancer asshole, she nodded, “any idea how?”

“I have an idea but I don’t know if anything’ll come of it.”

“Try it anyway, please.”

About to dance with the devil, Frohike called him over, “hey, so, there’s this weird string of emails about disciplinary action on an agent involving a shooting … something about the guy’s partner and Skinner having to reprimand him. Could that be something?”

Anything to stave off cigarette man a little longer, “let’s call around and see if anything pans out.”

&&&&&&&&

Pan out it did. Agent Bibbins hadn’t come to work in several days and once Mulder showed up at his front door, other agents flanking him, Frohike received an email via Skinner’s account,

“Found me faster than I expected. You probably won’t find him though.”

That just pissed Frohike off, “that little fucking punk thinks he can take Walter! Walter’s ours, goddammit!” Smacking Langley on the arm, “we gotta fire up the big guns. Go wake up Mibty, we’ve got work to do.”

Scully, not sure if sleep made her hear things wrong, “Mibty?”

“Yeah, Mine Is Better Than Yours. It’s the computer we only turn on for the big jobs. Pulls power like you wouldn’t believe. We dimmed the White House once; sent that joint into chaos.” Finally cracking a smile, “that was a fun night.”

And this was one of those times she didn’t question, simply nodding her appreciation for the mythical powers of ‘Mibty’, “drain the power, boys.”

‘Mibty’ however, could only get them so far, the cameras of the city running through facial recognition but coming up empty. Several sloppy algorithms later, they did manage to find six license plates with partial matches to Bibbins car but all turned up empty, much to Byers frustration, causing him to pound the kitchen counter with his fist, a tantrum tantamount to a four-year-old lighting the world on fire.

Maggie, however, was more of a concern than the Corian, her eyes glazed, stirring her ice-cold tea absently, her stare focused on the wall, “mom? Do you want to go try to get some sleep?”

“I would like you to find Walter for me. I will sleep once that happens.”

“Mom, we’re working on it but this could take more than a few hours. Bibbins isn’t giving us much to go on.”

Her gaze still fixed elsewhere, “you’ve chased enough of these people. If you were him, where is the first place you’d go and the last place another agent would look? He’s one of you so he must be avoiding everything he knows you’ll do.” Finally looking at her daughter, “what would you do if you kidnapped Walter?”

For all the knowledge between everyone working the case, she didn’t think it had occurred to anyone to do what her mother was suggesting. Thinking hard, moving her mind in singular focus, she stood statue-like for more than a minute, three blurry-eyed Gunmen and one attentive mother waiting quietly, “I would keep him close, actually. We would first search near the car, then branch out but since I’d know that, I’d stay as close to where I tracked him from as I could. It’s that whole return to the scene of the crime thing but instead,” looking through the night dark glass of the back door at the house roofs peaking over the trees, “I’d come back here, to the neighborhood … to an empty house.”

Byers was already on the phone to Mulder, “get over here. Scully may have just figured out where he is.”

Still talking to herself, “but how would he have known to send the email?”

“Easy. Camera in the house, porch area, connect to them with a laptop, watch what’s going on.” Frohike, his hand hesitant on her arm, “Mulder’ll get him.”

Having given a brief summation, Byers surrendered the phone into her hands, “Mulder?”

As usual, he cut to the chase, “are there any empty houses in the neighborhood? For sale? People on vacation? Does Mom know?”

After relaying the question to Maggie, she echoed the response back to Mulder, “the one on the corner of this street and there’s one directly behind us, one house to the East.”

Knowing she was right in her assessment, he was already in the car on the way back, “stay inside. Lock the door. You have your gun?”

“Armed and ready. Smack this bastard once for me, would you?”

“Twice because I love you. You’ll see us in a few.”

Lights, noise, gunfire, negotiation, gunfire, SWAT calls and Mulder standing in abject superiority over the sobbing body of one Agent Bibbins, soon to be, Mulder hoped, Convict #44352139; he called her back with a light in his voice, a vocal lilt of pure satisfaction at having won this round with a giant pain in his ass.

“He’s crying like a small child in front of me as we speak.”

“Skinner?”

“No, Bibbins. They’re getting Skinner now.” Scully, repeating this to her mother, still had a smile on her face when she heard muffled shouts and Mulder’s voice yelling, “what?!”

“Mulder? Mulder, what happened?”

Commotion continued and about to leave the house and walk over to see what had happened, Mulder came back on the line, only a hair above a whisper, “he’s not here.”

“What?”

“Skinner. He’s not here.”

At that moment, Bibbins stopped his bawling and, as another officer patted him down again, looking for anything that might clue them in as to where he was stashing Skinner, Bibbins angled his head at the infuriating tilt of ‘I know something you don’t know’ and watched the officer pull metal frames out of the breast pocket of his not so crisp and clean button down.

Handing the item to Mulder, “oh, God.”

“Mulder? What?!”

Mulder turned the wire-rimmed evidence over and over between his fingers, “he has Walter’s glasses.”


End file.
